jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

In smaller tube amps there's always a smudge of hamonuc distortion on the cleans. It may not be audible as overdrive, but the subtle overtones are what make tube amp tones juicy and desirable. A jc120 can give you boneclean guitar if thats what you want. That said, i have 30 watters so that i can get a very clean and punchy top boost sound when i want to be all pixies/bob mould with od switching. But doing more if a classic rock type thing i really like playing in 15 watt and letting the amo breathe and if it means my clean tone us not soclean when i dig in so be it. I don't aproach amps and guitars, dirty and clean in the black and white way you youngsters do. There are lots of subtle shades and i get them with my fingers and knobs based on how i am feeling...

Dual triodes don't come gainier than a 12ax7/ecc83. Gain of 100. Some varieties have an earlier internal distortion onset when overloaded but they still pass a max potential gain of 100 to the next stage. I cannot imagine 3 cascaded stages into a cathode follower tonestack being too few. Thats what that laney's gain channel has. Thats the same gain structure as a jcm800. Enough for all but the heavist metal at 10. More than any amp I've owned in 10 years. With p90s those tubes should get a big whack of signal to go into overdrive. I have trouvle keeping a 15 watter with 2 stages dead clean when playing p90s or medium output paf type humbuckers in a band setting. My clean usually has a little dirt. I don't get what's up with this laney. I am thinking its suffering from bedroom player sindrome. This is a case of inexperience.

just do like a dynamic digital delay set maybe to a dotted eighth note and a tape slapback and you have more ambience then you really need going dry to either/or to both at once. You'll find yourself mostly just putting the tape slap on sandwiched between a little fulltone dirt and your amp's natural breakup. It'll be organic and great for rhythms as well as tasteful licks filling in gaps in the music and transitions (I think, I imagine the music you're playing is arranged a lot like adult contemporary and some country stuff with a little coldplay ad mid-80s U2 thrown in, but with Jesus lyrics instead of stuff about lost love or baring your "sugar shaker" at the "honkey tonk" on Friday... but I could be off base. I haven't been in a church apart from funerals for a decade)...

Any tips on how to do that wonderful vibrato?

the high part? That's done with a slide... on the derrick and the dominoes LP it was played by Duane Allman using a coricidin bottle on (I think) a 60 les paul (coulda been an old 335 too) into a tweed fender champ, probably a 5F1 from 58 or 59, at 10. Now Bonamassa plays it I think. He uses a Dunlop slide of some kind made from old style glass rather than modern pyrex like most slides. They sound different.... other than that I dunno, but the vibrato on the clip is done with the slide as you roll into each note. Duane did it really well. He was a slide master. Listen to the 2 disc live at the philmore some time and get schooled.

So the answer is non-pyrex glass slide, PAF equipped guitar, cranked amp and PRACTICE.... the myth is that Allman perfected his slide work while his right arms was broken, he couldn't use his hand right or move his fingers while it healed so his brother gave him a coricidin bottle and he spent the month with the cast on sliding around all day until he was a god.

All well said Narcy, but God hates bad tone.... on the up side I have heard God prefers EL84 tubes to all other power tubes, that's why they die so young. So our friend, the OP, is already on The Almighty's good side by playing a 15 watt vox amplifier at church. God also is unimpressed with the Fuzz Factory because its a glorified fuzzface desgned to act like a broken vintage effect and He thinks its overrated. I believe God might be ready to hear some fuzzy leads with character in His bands though. I have heard such things in gspel bands and it was awesome. But those guys have the balls to rpaise God with envelope fitlers, wah wah, flangers... you name it (I briefly filled in as FOH for a HUGE Philadelphia gospel congregation after the congregation member who had previously done the job moved... those guys put on a great show, played wonderfully and the congregation just dove into it with tons of enthusiasm, "you got to PRAIIIISE Him! PRAISE HIM BROTHERS AND SISTERS!" These ladies would have like, SEIZURES while playing tambourine, it was great... made every other church band sound lame and the arrangements were so funky, it was like neo gospel).

ooh. shortscale bass? I dunno abou that... more of Gibson thing and then not as good as full fender scale for most tones....

want to get tolerance from a jerkoff store clerk? fill out a financing app before asking to play the same guitar for 2 or 3 hours straight! Then they knw you mean business. But seriously, if a clerk at a music store gives me shit I won't buy there. I flip them attitude and complain to the manager too. One Guitr Center manager knew me and when he heard me tell off a new salesperson he stopped me from stalking out, scolded the guy and offered me a discount on the marshall amp I wanted to crank up to test but that jackass condescendingly told me to turn down. I did in fact buy that amp and it was a serious sale for the store. Sometimes when I get a similar guitar somewhere else I go back with the receipt to show them their lost thousand$+ sale just so the jerk get fired. I am usually a serious shopper. There have been times when I went into a store just putter around and left with a guitar or amp, lots of them! If you fuck with me while I am deciding you will lose your sale. I am always shopping whether I say so or not....

Well... I did play the thing for at least 2 hours to get that handcramp while chording. I always do that before buying a guitar in person and also when I 1st get a guitar from the web. If i get handcramps in an hour or so I don't buy or, in the case if internet buys, I pack them back up and return them. The 1 time i didn't play a guitar for hours before buying i wound upwith a jackson that just wasn't comfortable for me for more than 15 minutes, so I am cautious now... even with the odd midset guitarswitch, you really need to make sure you buy necks that are comfortable for long sets, rehearsals and sessions when required. Even after my Jackson I thought I liked relatively slim necks and gravitated to Gibson slim taper and such before settling on medium-big late 50s shapes like the Gibson/Gretsch/Guild roundback, so-called Fender D shape and that soft V shape fender and some other companies did and still put on a few models. The boat and U shapes are a little too big to keep my thumb back where it oughta be when I am not bending.

EDIT: Everybody is different, but I think most people with normal man-size hands eventually find that while the flat necks facilitate a lot of fancy playing with less work than a rounder neck,, overall the lack of support for your palm gets fatiguing if you play for a long time. Guys who are unaware of this phenomenon have not had to play a variety of different style on one guitar in a 4 hour rehearsal or have small or oddly proportioned hands. I think the old neck shapes were made the way they were for 2 reasons, 1? stability! More wood means less warping, less truss adjustment needed and less danger of cranking wood or metal. To say nothing of the tendency of thin necks to twist, argh! But reason 2 is that the larger, rounder shapes suit the average player with average male hands well enough and are non-fatiguing back in the day where big bands, country and western groups and blues guys would play clubs and bars from duck til dawn every weekend providing music for working class stiffs to dance to... believe it or not it was fender who pioneered the term "fast neck" for a slimmer profile with a slimmer nut width. Their real motivation was to reduce the amount of wood required to make their necks so they could get 2 necks out of each maple blank instead of 1 (switching to the rosewood board helped too). The marketing department at fender was amazing at selling cost-cutting measures as 'improvements'. HAHAHA, but that 60s fender marketing lore has become written in stone. While now it is accepted that wider string spacing is better for 'fastness', the slim neck thing hangs on and has been taken to extremes because the thin necks do feel good for speedy runs when you 1st pick them up... and girls like them too. YMMV, but I can play a long time on my LP which has an ungodly huge neck even for me, I can play fast runs with ease now that I am used to it, I can play anything and everything for hours on end without tiring and my bends and different vibrato techniques are much easier with all that wood to anchor my thumb to. A skinny neck feels comfortable right away, sure. It feels easy. You think you are playing your best... but are you? and for how long? The big fatty will feel intimidating when you first pick it up but won't hold you up a much as you are expecting it to as long as you get past the mental block of "big necks slow," but if you keep it you will get used to it quickly ad discover its virtues. None of this matters if you suck though. you'll be just as bad no matter what....

I came close to buying an mij S (i think, i get the ibanezes mixed up easily) but the wizard2 neck was so slim it fatigued me doing chords. Compound radius helped but i need more shoulder! At least something assymetrical like a evh wolfgang.

why don't you just make use of your amp's natural overdrive and the muff, man? What kidna music are you playing that needs more rhythm gain than the laney has in channel 2?

Plus, if you get to play loud at this show you can get the power amp cooking hard. Try turning the clean channel up until it breaks up and then abck off a 1/2 number on the dial, then set the gain channel to have a great OD tone at the same level as the clean channel and then turn that gain channel up a whole number so its working the poweramp a bit harder than the clean pushing her into sweet, sweet overdrive whenever the drive channel is engaged.

Why does everyone think they need so much kit these days to play a simple, local show for other kids? My 1st rock show? I ahd a fender amp, a Carvin guitar, a borrowed MXR distortion+ (I think, or it mighta been an OD250 or morley wah/distortion for lead boost, its been 20 years) and that's it and it was fine. I set my amp to break up when I opened my bridge volume to max, did a little verb, and the pedal was for solos... I love gear, but tis not about making tons of sounds, its about playing well and rocking like a testosterone and coffee fueled 15 year-old boy with a chip on his shoulder and something to say about it! I remember being blown away by local bands who got on stage with 80s crate gear, a DS1 and radioshack mics and they just bashed it out. As you get odler it will matter more, but right now your mission is to play with maximum enthusiasm and pay your dues while doing it....

I keep getting tempted to buy an entry-level Gibson explorer (maybe one of the unpopular "goth" ones LOL) to be my 'metal/shred' guitar. I could just slap a stetsbar on for whammy tricks I guess.... It won't be a superstrat type thing, but its more me... and maybe I could do something crazy with the bridge pickup too like another 59/custom hybrid (have I mentioned that the hybrid is the best balance between a crazy hot PAF tone and an 80s hard rock sound ever? well it is... I am so into it)

my washburn would be a killer shred guitar if it had a vibrato system capable of divebombs and such.... as it is it has the tone (maybe it was more right before I swapped the super distortions out, but like I said I like the hybrid for hotrod bucker sounds), but the fixed bridge, while great for sustain holds it back from full shredtasticness... not that I will really do a lot of crazy, heavy shit beyond some cheap van halen, paul gilbert and geoerge lynch impersonations, but you know.... it might be fun

I can't say anything bad about the musicman shredder guitars of their strat-like guitars either. They do a great job over there. I always forget about musicman when I'm thinking about getting a superstrat....

okey doke, I'll take your word for it on Iabnez stuff as I am unfamiliar with most of their model sub-designations like you are talking about.... I pretty much know what each model looks like broadly and I know a lot about the old 702/80s model designations for the artist guitars like my Greco and their semi-hollows a bit...

Do you have any pictures of that pinecaster it sounds really interesting?

I don't have picture of my particular one that's not a blurry and small stage shot of me, but ehre's one of the other 4 right before she got strings and went off to her owner... (I know its not mine because the grain is less knotty and the lower bouts are cut and sanded more precisely to fender pecs on this one):

http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt117/emcrae1968/Pinecaster%20Vintage/P3190682.jpg

Eddie also designed and made his own hum-cancelling early-style tele pickups.... they were kidna wrong for the guitar authenticity-wise being more 52ish when a pine guitar with broadcaster steel saddles like this oughta have something hot with thin wire and A3 magnets, more like a lapsteel bridge pup. But they really managed to do hum cancelling early tele sounds better than anything I have heard (and I have tried most everything at this point). I don't know what he did to make them so amazing. I should buy a set... he really overaged the hardware on these 5 tele though. It looked funky with all that rust and such... maybe a little wear to take the sheen down a bit woulda looked good, but he really got carried away with the patina given that he didn't age or distress the finish. reclaimed wood or not, the finish was brand new and perfectly executed. I am griping over smalls tuff. It was a very good Tele overall... I wanted to love it but I failed to bond with it.

yeh, my son is totally worn out today for some reason and its MLK day so I can putter around to my heart's delight... its not a teisco, but its awfully similar.... its on his equipboard

its not obscure guitar reviews but thas an interestin old knockoff... reminds me of the guitar Bernard Sumner played in Joy Division...

welp, I own more than a few guitars, but as you say, I can't take them ALL with me! These days I perform so intermittently that the stages are always small bars/clubs where there isn't room for a huge guitar rack even were I willing to lug it. But misuse of the modelling technology also appeals to me...

Ibanez GS221

I just looked that up. Sexy strat curves and beveling... ooh. That's a superstrat I would buy.... hmmm. Is that a prestige model?

how was the variax? I have always been tempted to get on just to fuck with the voicing and tuning controls while playing!

1980 represent! I feel like every pedal degrades my tone in ways overloading an amplifier does not, but once in a while the effect I am using will give me more enjoyment that annoyance (until I get bored with the gimmick). That's not just drives. I mean everything. Even getting high end stuff I find that everything I put between the guitar and amp or preamp and power amp screws over the feel if not the tone of my rig. My last 10 years of playing have really been about figuring out ways to have the sound and feel I want and also get effects when needed. For my own part I would just eschew all effects except boost maybe, but in other people's bands playing anything but blues and jazz you need to muster some textures other than badass amp tone.

I am not a huge U2 fan, but the guy who carries this off really well live is the Edge. His rig is outta control though. My toddler really like U2 and we were watching their recent HBO special together last week. I was knocked out by how well he replicates the classic 80s sounds live as well as how good the additions to his rig sound. His non-effects parts that are just clean or distorted rhythm playing sounded fabulous with varying degrees of vintage amp OD, basic pedal drive and a little ambience from reverb or a simple ducking delay if ou strained to hear it. not the kidna thing you expect from Mr Effects himself, but it made me appreciate how well you can incorporate things if you have time, know-how, patience and money. He managed to have some subtle enhancements going on just about every tone without sacrificing the distinct timbre and dynamics of each guitar and amp combination. And it all sat in the mix damned well. Short of that sort fo ingenuity I feel like I could just give up again and stick with my tried and true formula of guitar-> tuner-> maybe a boost-> Vox amp...

I went through the 'amps and effects are cooler than guitars' phase, but I have learned so much about those things and learned what I like in amps so well that its no longer exciting to me unless I am thinking of branching out from my very vintage rock aesthetic. I also don't get a lot of song from new pedals and amps, but every time I get a new guitar, especially something old and/or odd? I start writing again.... there are songs and/or cool new licks locked in every used instrument just waiting for the right set of hands to free them.... this is not true of amps, even something old and amazing like my '62 ac30B. YMMV

Wheew. I have no interest in 2000s epiphones so I feel safe. Thanks!

the tradition in house from day 1 was to keep it so painfully simple that a tonedeaf Whitman could understand and groove to it. Some great house and techno producers I've known had little to know musical training and heir primary instrument was drums before getting into dance music.... these are older guys who had popular tracks in the 90s, but I think Gchiaren has made a great point and asked a fascinating question... I get carried away with over-writing dance music and it looses immediacy and intensity though I wind up with loads of atmosphere compared to less trained guys. Where do you sit with it?

I am tempted to get a higher gain channel switcher on the cheap. The Vai amps are kinda appealing in that version 2 and 3 can channel switch with MIDI program changes so you can control them via an effects unit like the TC g-system I've been eyeing... I know the whole thing is a Bogner hot rodded Marshall affair co-designed by Fargen for Steve and Carvin in 99. I remember trying a verison 1 legacy back then and liking it quite a bit but not enough to spend the enw buy-in price. The version 2 has nice mercury magnetics transformers and has the midi capabilities as well as 3 channels and 2 tonestacks. They seem unpopiular as high gain amps because they don't do scooped metal tones well, but for me this might be ideal... seems like the 2 has the best build quality as well as having all the features of the 3 but the color-change backlight and the rackmouting option (which are kinda cool, but oh well). Anyone have anything to tell me? Is it worth dropping 500 bucks on a used Legacy 2 head I can't try first? I just might enjoy a decent clean, JCM800ish crunch and liquidy blastoff solo tone all in one box with the ability to midi control everything while running parallel to my AC30(s) for best of both worlds, but is this a good option or is the pricing too good to be true? And if I ahte it how's the resale? Help!

I loved their dry, sabbathy sound on chop suey and toxicity.

Odds are you want bright or not. Toggling would screw up your tonestack settings. Also, bright and deep controls are volume dependent. The higher the gain knob the less effect a bright cap will have. I am not even sure it could effectively controlled via a relay because its such a primitive design

Out of curiosity Boom, what decade was your epi from so I can avoid those sheratons (i like the sheraton 2 in general, but i am not sure if the ones i played back in the day were 80s or 90s, mij or mik or even indonesian or Chinese)

I was never so into tool that I tired of them. MJK is busy trying to make Arizona into a world class wine growing region... I can understand his lack of time and inspiration. Without him tool would be in a spot. At least hes ruining their careers doing something productive unlike scott weiland and STP.

Share all your electric guitars current and past. Heres my list:

MIJ squier strat 80s, gifted to friend's son

USA Guild Starfire 1 60s, traded (edit: big regret, even though it had 1 pickup and was prone to feedback this guitar sounded great and was fun to play and now i can't afford another one. Old starfires have caught on in a big way. I was too young to make her work for me and appreciate her in 95, shes the one that got away.)

German Carvin sh225 aka hofner verithin 80s, current

USA Jackson dinky V, sold (edit: amazing guitar for someone else. This along with my 900 taught me I am just not into shred even if i know how to do all the techniwues and setup my gear for it.)

USA gibson lp studio 90s, sold (edit: worst guitar i have ever owned... I played good ones of similar vintage in stores but this was a dog. It turned me off of ebay guitars for a decade!)

MIM fender Jimmy Vaughn strat 90s? current

MIM fender classic 50s strat 2003, sold

MIJ fender 58 ri strat A serial, sold

USA Gibson lp tv special dc 2006, sold

USA Gibson lp standard 1988, sold (edit: this taught me that the 70s dictum that heavier pauls sound better is a lie, my sustain was long but the tone was unremarkable, not lively at all. This guitar also had me at the chiropractor for 6 months.)

MIJ Gretsch 59 duo jet ri 2006, sold (edit: great axe but the dynasonics are a hum nightmare. Worse than p90s for buzz in the era of iphones. Turned me back on to buckers in a big way.)

MIM fender classic 50s esquire 2000s, current

USA fender hot rod 52 tele 2008? sold (edit: seemed cooler in the store)

USA/MIM fender 59/60 spec parts tele, current

USA pebblebrook pinecaster 2012, traded (edit: this was a killer handmade guitar built from century old barn wood and some nice flamed maple, 1 of 5. It had a small carving flaw that made thepickguard look a little off so it was affordable for me. Great guitar but it just never sat right in my hand. Odd neck shape and i felt thestring tree placement made the tension weird on the b&e so out she went after a few years trying to make her work for my style of playong. But i recommend eddie's guitars to everyone. His finish work is uniquely stunning, especially over all the reclaimed old wood.)

CIJ fender floral tele ri 2000s, traded

USA Gibson Sg standard 2000s, current (edit: my desert island guitar! Perfect neck shape, super versatile tonally after a bridge pickup swap, so light I can play her all day and not know it. I musta played 100 standards and 61 RIs to find one that was affordable, loud when unplugged, super-light but did not have the notorious SG headstock dip on a strap... I got frustrated after a year only to find this one after I had quit looking.)

CIJ fender aerodyne tele 2000s, traded

MIJ yamaha sa1000 70s, current

MIJ yamaha sa1100 80s, sold

USA gibson lp studio platinum 2000s, current (I usually never look at singlecuts these days, but boy is this guitar awesome looking)

MIJ greco mr1000 70s, current

MIJ washburn falcon 80s, current

No reason to apologize. Just sayin'

I make a point of watching the last waltz every year... But the thread is non-documentary. Whiplash really took me back to jazz band competitions. One of my good friends got me to watch it because he thought the lab band director reminded him of me as a vand leader, arranger and music director. I never hit anyone though... and I have all my hair.

I haven't had any bad experience with Boss, they just don't have much character,

I used to look for 'character' drives in pedals. The zvex was my last flirtation with this. I realized that I love the character of all my guitars as well as the character of my amps and speakers and just want to add dirt and maybe compression without deafening people. Or myself. Lately my solution is to just play my ac4 turned way up for drive, but since I traded off my drive pedals I've been missing that mxr custom badass od (what a weak name, were they trying to be ironic?). It had a special lead sound it could do with my HC30 ef86 channel.... I thought I wouldn't care but I do.

The 1980 in your name, is it the year you were born?

Box of rock and distortron are more of a jtm45 sound than superlead. Less crunch and bite, more growl. While the bor circuit is bassy as pedals go, setting the tone control to get a crispier top tends to neuter the bass so that if you have a nice, round clean then your od sounds ridiculously thin when seitching midsong unless you use lots of gain and have tons of level jump from clean to dirty. For more of a tweed and early marshall growl the bor works well. The distortron is the same basic circuit w/o the clean boost and with variable input caps that shape the low end. I prefer the distortron actually but its not great thru a vox. Better with a marshall and then why bother? It definitely lacks the huge wallop of odd order harmonics you get from superleads. Have you looked at the bogner blue pedal. I was impressed when i tried it. It also worked equally well with voxes, marshalls, fenders and gies well beyond vintage superlead distortion levels if you want. Reminds me of a perfected carl martin 3 switch plexitone. Way more amplike for sure but with all the crunch and definition.

If you find the fulldrive to be dark then you will also find the zvex drives to be dark.

EDIT: I'm thinkin', and in classic, cheap od/distortion you may enjoy something basic like the dod od250 or ibanez sonic distortion sd9. They are bright and crispy. They take flack from fender anp guys as they do not sound good thru the midscooped blackface preamp. But into a british amp with plenty of gain stages? Great 70s crunch. Depending on how you set your nighttrain's tonestack for cleans/rhythm the basic diode to ground distortion may do it for you. This type of thing is the basis of the ds1, rat, klon and even the ocd though those guys are really refined to fulfill specific tonal roles. The more primitive designs give a wallop of raw crunch that can be really fantastic. There is a reason they have huge followings. Look at the ross distortion. Just a variation of the od250 and mxr distortion+, but its a good flavor tohave and ross has long been out of business so original examples command big bucks because, well, they sound good thru marshalls, laneys, voxes etc...

I did not care for the fulldrive2 mosfet I owned, but the fulldrive3 seems cool, capable of TS9 and SD1 tone with a nice Jfet stage thrown in for good measure to push your OD into distortion turf or to boost your amp. Wow. Why would you need another dirtbox. Maybe you need to use the 'wide assymetrical' clipping mode and leave the tone control wide open? I have not tried one so I can't speak to it, but I find the flatter, brighter SD1 tone schools a TS9 thru a vox. The TS9 is a fender amp thing, really. When I played old blackface amps and strats all the time I swore by my ts9. Now being more of a Gibson and Vox player I prefer the SD1 and similar pedals. Its nice you have a pedal that does both since you have a straight tele and a fat strat with a hot dimarzio. What model dimarzio do you have? I just unloaded some early super distortions, not my thing, but neat pickup for seriously hard rocking....

I wonder if Spuds is dead now. He would be a pretty old dog if he were still alive...

She doesn't play Aretha, Aretha was on Atlantic and recorded mainly at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals. You're thinking of Etta James. Totally different person, totally different thing they do. Different label, studio and backing band too... different era for their heydays too. Etta WAAAY predates Aretha Franklin.

I didn't know you could be a certified pianist. Is that like a certified public accountant where you get the degree in your field and sit the test for that all important government license?

Mogwai is prog rock?

Station is what tickled my fancy.

and odds are you will not need to send your Palmer back to Thomann... I will bet it gives solid service at rehearsals gigs and home for years as long as you bias her properly every tube change and respect her output impedance.

I looked at the fat50 specs, looks solid enough.... definitely in the hotrod deville camp.

y'know, I checked that band out based on their rig rundown... I forgot all about them til you said their name here. Their stuff was awesome.

this is going to sound like a lame cop-out, but in this general idiom of progressive/alt-metal? Its Tool or nuthin' for me. They have the chops and the wild sounds like everyone else, but the songwriting and the emotionally charged atmosphere's they create with their tones are a distinct cut above everyone else who tries to fuse 70s prog rock and metal. When Tool plays in a weird time signature its smooth and natural feeling. It hardly jumps out at you as an oddball meter and it really adds soemthing to the song. Nothing they do feels like they are showing off their skills and writing music to impress other metal nerds. Maynard is also a great vocalist with a distinct style. You always recognize him in a few notes. Tool are a true original, a force to be reckoned with as heavy players, creative arrangers and above all appealing songwriters. Often imitated but never duplicated.